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Journal of Historical Geography 37 (2011) 483e492

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Journal of Historical Geography

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The politics of commemorative street renaming: Berlin 1945e1948

Maoz AzaryahuDepartment of Geography and Environmental Studies, University of Haifa, Mt. Carmel, Haifa 31905, Israel

Abstract

Commemorative street names belong to the ideological foundations of the socio-political order. The process of renaming streets figures prominently ina stage of regime change. As a measure of historical revision, renaming the past is a twofold procedure that involves both the de-commemoration of theversion of history associated with and supportive of the old regime and the commemoration of heroes and events that represent the new regime and itsversion of history. This paper examines political processes and commemorative priorities and strategies that directed the renaming of streets in post-World War II Berlin during two successive municipal administrations. The first part of the article explores the failed project promoted by theunelected communist administration that ruled Berlin between May 1945 and October 1946 aimed to achieve a comprehensive odonymic reform thatwent beyond a mere purge of explicit Nazi street names. The second part examines the substantially downscaled purge of Berlin’s register of street namesaccomplished by the SPD-led city government that took office after the October 1946 democratic election.� 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Berlin; Street names; Commemoration; Public memory; Regime change

Expressive of political and ideological reorientation, acts of pullingdown monuments and renaming streets are symptomatic ofperiods of regime change and revolutionary transformations.Following the surrender of the Third Reich in May 1945, the crea-tion of an ‘anti-fascist’ and democratic regime in occupied Germanywas a key priority. The de-nazification of public life involvedpurging Nazi officials from public office and the resurgence ofpolitical life based on the shared principle of ‘antifascism’ as theunderpinning of democratic renewal. It also included activitiesinitiated by local authorities to purge the public sphere of symbolicrepresentations of the Nazi regime.

The renaming of Berlin’s streets began immediately after thesurrender of the Third Reich. The process was initiated and carriedout by different branches of municipal administration with the aimto rid the former German capital of street names that were not intune with the democratic ideals of the emergent ‘anti-fascist’Germany. Understood as a politically expedient measure ofcommemorative revision, the project failed to materialize in theform envisioned by the communist-led city government: a radicalodonymic reform aimed at eliminating Nazi and ‘reactionary’commemorations.1 The dynamic between party politics, localgovernment structures and economic considerations complicatedthe process of street renaming. A substantially downscaled purge of

E-mail address: maoz.azaryahu@gmail.com1 The term ‘odonym’ refers to a street or road name.2 L. Berg and J. Vuolteenaho (Eds), Critical Toponomies: The Contested Politics of Pla

Geographies of toponymic inscriptions: new directions in critical place-names studies, P

0305-7488/$ e see front matter � 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.doi:10.1016/j.jhg.2011.06.001

Berlin’s register of street names was arranged by the SocialDemocratic city government that assumed office after the October1946 democratic elections. The long-awaited list of officiallyapproved changes was signed into law in summer 1947, a littlemore than two years after the renaming project had been launchedby the former administration.

Based on archival material and newspaper reports, this articleexplores Berlin’s politics of street renaming as an aspect of thepolitical geography and urban history of the city between thesurrender of the Third Reich in May 1945 and the split of the city inNovember 1948. The analysis highlights how commemorativepriorities and administrative procedures and practices underlay therenaming of streets in the former capital of the Reich under twosuccessive administrations: the communist-led administrationinstalled inMayeJune 1945 and the SPD-led administration formedafter the municipal elections held in October 1946.

The politics of commemorative street (re)naming

A prerogative of elected or nominated authorities, and affected bycompeting administrative and political agendas for control over thepublic domain, the act of naming streets is an expression of power.2

Commemorative measures of naming are embedded into the

ce Naming, Farnham, 2009; R. Rose-Redwood, D.H. Alderman and M. Azaryahu,rogress in Human Geography 30 (2010) 468e486.

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political geography of the city and the cultural geographies ofpublic memory and everyday life.3 The version of history inscribedin street signs and depicted in maps represents the commemora-tive priorities of former municipal authorities and politicalregimes.4 The association of commemorative street names withspecific social, cultural and political systems makes them, togetherwith other symbolic expressions of power, vulnerable to shifts inpolitical ideologies and discourses of history. Renaming streetsfigures prominently in periods of regime change and revolutionarytransformations.5 With the collapse of the imperial regime inFrance in 1815 some 50 streets in Paris were renamed. Most of themregained their pre-revolutionary names.6 The renaming of streetsalso figured prominently in Paris after the establishment of theThird Republic in 1871.

The process of renaming streets introduces the transformationof the political order and the ideology of the new regime intomundane spheres of urban experience and even intimate levels ofeveryday life. When conducted in the context of a regime change,‘renaming history’ e rewriting the history inscribed on street signse is a powerful demonstration of ideological control over publicurban space that resonates with the notion of a new beginning inpolitical history. However, the scope and dynamic of ‘renaminghistory’ evince particular political and administrative pressures andincentives that induce and facilitate the odonymic reshaping of thecity to make urban space consonant with the ideological under-pinnings of the new regime and its vision of history.

A primary objective of renaming history in the context ofa revolutionary transformation of society is to purge the registerof street names of those that represent the old regime and its visionof history. The de-commemoration of the old regime is followed bythe commemoration of heroes and events that represent the newregime and its vision of history. Commemorative measures mayassume the form of re-commemoration, namely, reinstitutingurban toponymic commemorations that had been deleted by theold regime after it assumed power. The restoration of the Frenchmonarchy following the defeat of the Napoleonic Empire was alsoevident in the restoration of pre-revolutionary street names inParis. On top of de-commemorating the old regime, in its capacityas a restorative measure re-commemoration emphasizes historicalcontinuity with the period that had preceded the old regime.

Berlin’s street names 1813e1945

According to a Prussian royal decree from 1813, the naming of streetsin the royal residence cities of Prussia e Berlin, Potsdam and Char-lottenburgewasaprerogativeof thePrussianking, or rather, thechiefof police as the representative of the king. Following their ‘nationali-zation’, Berlin’s street names commemorated Prussian military gloryand members of the ruling Hohenzollern dynasty. Already in 1814three squares were named as commemorations of Prussian victoriesover Napoleon, among them the Belle-Alliance-Platz in Kreuzberg.

3 M. Azaryahu, The power of commemorative street names, Environment and Planninnaming places and commemoration in the American south, Professional Geographer 52 (2of commemorating Martin Luther King Jr within the African American community, Area

4 K. Palonen, Reading street names politically, in: K. Palonen and T. Parvikko (Eds), ReaUrban planning, colonial doctrines and street naming in French Dakar and British Lagos

5 M. Azaryahu, German reunification and the politics of street names. The case of East1990e1997: exploring the modern historical geographies of post-socialist change, Jourenovation of Moscow place names’, Russian Review 64 (2005) 480e503.

6 P. Ferguson, Reading city streets, French Review 51 (1988) 391.7 Protocol, municipal assembly of Greater Berlin, session on 7 April 1927.8 Gemeindeblatt der Stadt Berlin, 67 (7), 14 February 1926. See also Berliner Tageblatt,9 Amtsblatt der Stadt Berlin, 74 (15), 9 April 1933.

10 Amtsblatt der Stadt Berlin, 74 (37), 10 September 1933; Amtsblatt der Stadt Berlin, 7411 Amtsblatt der Stadt Berlin, 75 (30), 29 July 1934.

In 1864 the names of the Prussian generals Yorck, Gneisenau andBlücher, the heroes of the anti-Napoleonic Wars of Liberation, werecommemorated on the street signs in Kreuzberg. When the Republicwas proclaimed in 1918, the PrussianMinistry of the Interior replacedthe king as the source of authorization, with the chief of police as theexecutive body in charge.

In 1920 Greater Berlin was agglomerated. As a result of thecreation of Greater Berlin, duplicate street names and commemo-rations abounded in the German capital. For instance, 19 streetswere named after Kaiser Wilhelm and 16 after his wife, Viktoria.Already in 1921 the municipal assembly debated the need to revisethe version of national history commemorated by street names. Inparticular, the radical left demanded to erase the memory of theHohenzollern dynasty from the street signs. Despite a resolution tothis effect passed by the municipal assembly in 1927,7 theMagistrat(Berlin’s city government) avoided a large-scale purge of monarchicstreet names that could provoke conservatives and nationalists.

The Social Democrats, in contrast to the Communists, did notseek a comprehensive purge of monarchical commemorations.Their goal was to assert the idea of the Republic in Berlin’s cityscapethrough the renaming of Königsplatz (King’s Square), the square infront of the Reichstag, as Platz der Republik (Square of theRepublic). In February of 1926, a fewmonths after the elections thatsecured the workers’ parties a majority in the municipal assembly,the Social Democrats proposed this politically resonant renamingof the square. The resolution passed 121e81.8 Supported by theMagistrat, a fewweeks later the renaming was carried out. The ideaof the Republic was also represented by odonymic commemora-tions of leaders of the Republic. In 1925 a main thoroughfare,Budapesterstraße, in the city center was renamed after FriedrichEbert, the Social Democrat leader and the first President of theRepublic. In 1930 a street was renamed in Kreuzberg after GustavStresemann, Chancellor and Foreign Minister of the WeimarRepublic. Albeit few in number, republican commemorationscreated in Berlin’s cityscape a sense of historical continuitybetween the monarchy and the republic that followed it.

After the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, Republican commem-orations were removed from the public sphere. The first changewas restorative. On 30 March 1933 Platz der Republik received itsformer name, Königsplatz.9 The Reichskanzlerplatz in Charlotten-burg was renamed Adolf-Hitler-Platz. In September of 1933 theFriedrich-Ebert-Straße was renamed Hermann-Göring-Straße andin June the Bülowplatz in Friedrichshain, where the communistnewspaper Die Rote Fahne had had its headquarters, was renamedafter Horst Wessel, the supreme martyr of the National-Socialistmovement.10 After his death in 1934 a square in the vicinity ofthe Brandenburg Gate was named after Hindenburg, the veneratedWorld War I military hero who had succeeded Ebert in 1925 as thesecond and last president of the Weimar Republic and conferredlegitimacy on Adolf Hitler’s nomination to the post of Chancellor inJanuary 1933.11 The Nazi authorities named streets after WorldWar

g D: Society and Space 14 (1996) 311e330; D.H. Alderman, A street fit for a king:000) 672e684; D.H. Alderman, Street names and the scaling of memory: the politics35 (2003) 163e173.ding the Political, Exploring the Margins of Politics, Tampere, 1993, 103e121; L. Bigon,(1850se1930s), Urban History 36 (2009) 426e448.Berlin, Political Geography 16 (1997) 479e493; D. Light, Street names in Bucharest,rnal of Historical Geography 30 (2004) 154e172; G. Gill, Changing symbols: the

6 February 1926.

(24), 11 June 1933.

Fig. 1. Boroughs’ boundaries. The boundary between the Soviet sector and the western sectors is marked in black.

M. Azaryahu / Journal of Historical Geography 37 (2011) 483e492 485

I German generals and admirals, among them Mackensen, Tirpitzand Graf Spee.12 From a Nazi perspective, the monarchic, militaryand Nazi commemorations inscribed on Berlin’s street signs rep-resented the national legacy of the German people and its culmi-nation in the Third Reich.13

Phase I: May 1945eOctober 1946

Political background

Following a three week-long battle, on 2 May 1945 Berlinsurrendered to the Soviet Army. Berlin was ruled by the four allies,each in charge of a sector of the city. The Soviets controlled 8boroughs in the eastern part of the city, including Berlin-Mitte, thehistorical center of the PrussianeGerman capital (Fig. 1). The threewestern allies controlled 12 boroughs in the western part of thecity. Already on 30 April a group of exiled German communistsarrived in the city, entrusted with task to build a new adminis-tration headed by a broad ‘anti-fascist’ coalition of conservatives,socialists and communists. However, below the democratic veneerof the new administration, the communists were careful to keepkey positions in their hand, such as police, personnel and educa-tion.14 This was true of the boroughs as well as of the new citygovernment that was established on 17 May 1945. Mayor ArthurWerner, an architect who did not have any political ambitions,served as a figurehead of a city government dominated by thecommunists.15 The most powerful politician in Berlin’s citygovernment was the communist first deputy mayor and chief ofpolice Karl Maron. The communists Otto Winzer and Arthur Pieckwere in charge of education and personnel in city government,respectively.16

In June 1945 political life was revived when four political partieswere licensed by the occupation administration in Berlin. The

12 Amtsblatt der Stadt Berlin, 74 (51), 17 December 1933; Amtsblatt der Stadt Berlin, 7513 A. Giese, Unsere Helden und ihre Taten in den Straßennamen von Groß Berlin, Berli14 H.J. Reichardt, H.U. Treutel and A. Lampe (Eds), Berlin: Quellen und Dokumente 194515 J. Wetzel (Ed.), Die Sitzungsprotokolle des Magistrats der Stadt Berlin 1945e1946, Vol.16 Reichardt, Treutel and Lampe, Berlin: Quellen und Dokumente (note 14), 215.17 Wetzel, Die Sitzungsprotokolle des Magistrats der Stadt Berlin (note 15), 30.18 J. Wetzel (Ed.), Die Sitzungsprotokolle des Magistrats der Stadt Berlin 1945e1946, Vol.19 Protocol, conference of the borough mayors on 24 May 1945, Landesarchiv Zeitgesch1961, 65.

working-class parties were the Social Democratic Party (SPD) andthe Communist Party (KPD). The two ‘bourgeois’ parties were theChristian-Democratic Union (CDU) and the Liberal-DemocraticParty (LDP). However, the main political issue was the relation-ship between the KPD and the SPD.17 In October 1945 the KPDbegan promoting the merger of the two parties in the Soviet Zoneand in Berlin. A few leaders of the SPD in the Soviet Zone supportedthe communist initiative, yet the SPD in Berlin’s western sectorsobjected to a merger that would secure communist hegemony. Ina poll conducted in the three western sectors of the city in March1946, an overwhelming majority of SPD rank and file membersrejected the merger.18

The new partyd the Socialist Unity Party (SED)dwas foundedin April 1946. It succeeded the KPD and the SPD in the Soviet Zone,while an independent SPD continued to exist in Berlin, alongsidethe SED. Since SPD officials switched over to the SED, after themerger the non-elected city government was openly dominated bythe SED. However, campaigning for the elections for the municipalassembly due in October 1946 began already in August of that year.The upcoming election and the rivalry between the SED and anindependent SPD constrained the ability of the SED-controlled citygovernment to carry out uncompromising communist policies inthe city.

Setting the stage: MayeJune 1945

The question of renaming streets was raised at the first meeting ofborough mayors held on 24 May 1945, three weeks after the citysurrendered to the Soviet Army and a week after the newlyappointed city government began its work under the auspices ofthe Soviet military administration. On the agenda of the meetingwere urgent issues pertinent to the survival of the city, such as food,energy, medical supplies, housing and sanitary measures.19

(10), 11 March 1934.nische Blätter für Geschichte und Heimatkunde 1 (1934) 1e16.e1951, Vol. I, Berlin, 1963, 207.I, Berlin, 1995, 50.

II, Berlin, 1999, 5.ichte (LAZ) 13886; Berlin: Kampf um Freiheit und Selbstverwaltung 1945e1946, Berlin,

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The issue of renaming streets was resolved in most otherGerman cities by the end of 1945, when municipal administrationspublished a list of the new names assigned to streets as a measureof de-nazification and democratization of the public sphere.20

However, in Berlin the process was complicated by the fact thatrenaming streets was done on two municipal government levels,with both Magistrat and district administrations involved in theprocedure.

Contrary to other German cities, where naming streets was thejurisdiction of the municipality, in pre-Nazi Berlin the chief ofpolice, acting on behalf of Prussia’s ministry of interior, wasformally in charge of the matter. The question of jurisdiction wasraised by Mayor Werner in the first meeting of the district mayorsheld on 24 May 1945. In his view, in accordance with the oldpractice, the police, now a municipal authority should continue tobe in charge of naming streets.21 The issue was raised again on 18June 1945 at a meeting of theMagistrat.22 Invoking the old practice,it was agreed that Karl Maron, first deputy mayor (KPD/SED) andBerlin’s chief of police, should be put in charge of the renaming ofstreets and squares in the city.

At the meeting of the district mayors two days later, Maron setthe procedural rules: ‘renaming streets should be regulated cen-trally, while the boroughs had the right to make suggestions’. Theissue was not necessarily political control over the renaming ofstreets. As Maron explained, the boroughs were already carryingout changes of street names, which necessitated regulation bya central agency. Further, Maron contended that the Magistrat wasentitled to name ‘special main streets and squares after significantfigures of the present.’23 These guidelines involved the boroughsin the process, but also secured the administrative and politicalsupremacy of the Magistrat over the boroughs: the Magistrat wasnot only a regulatory authority, but was also entitled to set priori-ties of political nature.

Aims and approaches

The meeting with the borough mayors on 20 June 1945 was aboutsetting the stage for reforming Berlin’s namescape. In this meetingMaron urged the boroughs to provide lists with street names thathad been already changed or that should be changed. Interestingly,Maron did not at all refer to the new names that should replace theold ones. Ostensibly the renaming of streets, at least at this earlystage, was focused on ridding the cityscape from ideologically‘inappropriate’ commemorations. Another relevant question waswhether the purge of the official register of street names should beextended beyond the names of leaders and heroes of the ThirdReich to also include other commemorations deemed incompatiblewith the ‘democratic’ and ‘anti-fascist’ ideals of the new era.

In principle there appeared two fundamentally differentapproaches. Conservative and moderate-liberals favored a limitedpurge of Berlin’s namescape focused on deleting obvious Nazinames and restoring pre-Nazi names deleted by the Nazi regime. Atthe first meeting of the borough mayors on 24 April 1945, Mayor

20 In communist-controlled Potsdam the Magistrat announced the renaming of street oPotsdam. In Mannheim (the American Zone of Occupation) and Hamburg (the Britishrespectively: Military Government Gazette, 21 July 1945; Amtlicher Anzeiger Hamburg, 2521 Protocol, conference of the borough mayors, session on 24 May 1945, LAB C Rep. 1022 Protocol, city government, session on 18 June 1945, LAB C Rep. 100, No. 751. Hanau23 Protocol, conference of the borough mayors on 20 June 1945, LAZ 3829; Berlin: Kam24 Protocol, conference of the borough mayors on 20 June 1945, LAZ 3829; Berlin: Kam25 Protocol, municipal assembly of Greater Berlin, session on 27 April 1927.26 1500 neue Straßennamen in Berlin, Tägliche Rundschau, 7 March 1946.27 Tägliche Rundschau, 19e20 October 1945.28 Tagespiegel, 23 October 1945.

Arthur Werner urged the borough mayors: ‘We should submitproposals concerning the restoration of old names deleted by theNazis.’ The underlying idea was a return to the odonymic situationthat existed before the Nazi seizure of power. Restoring pre-Nazinames seemed an obvious renaming strategy. While renamingNazi names was a statement to the effect that the changes made bythe Nazis were null and void, the restoration of deleted streetnames was a symbolic declaration of continuity with the WeimarRepublic that had preceded the Third Reich.

However, lurking behind Werner’s emphasis on restoring pre-Nazi street names was the wish to depoliticize street names alto-gether by not investing them with a commemorative function. Theexample Werner used to explain the approach he favored wasrevealing. His suggestion was to rename the Brauner Weg, a namegiven by the Nazis in 1933, to Grüner Weg. What Werner did notmentionwas that the name GrünerWeg had already been erased in1926, when the street was renamed after Paul Singer, a leader ofSPD in Berlin prior to World War I. The Nazis erased thecommemoration of Singer, but did not restore the street’s formername. Instead of the original green they chose brown, the color ofthe Nazi movement. By not mentioning the fact that between 1926and 1932 the street had been named after Paul Singer, Wernerimplied the need to depoliticize Berlin’s street names by avoidinginvesting them with a commemorative function. This convictionwas shared by bourgeois administrators. At the follow-up meetingof the district mayors on 20 June 1945, the mayor of Zehlendorf,a bourgeois district in south-west Berlin, proudly reported that allthe new names in his district were apolitical, having been takenfrom the fields of mineralogy, geography, and botany.24

In contrast to the approach favored by conservatives, theprogram promoted by communist-led Magistrat under the direc-tion of Karl Maron foresaw a radical and comprehensive reform thatinvolved hundreds and even thousands of renamings. Theprecursor for this policy was the aforementioned resolution passedin 1927 by the Berlin municipal assembly to this effect.25 Aftergaining political power in Berlin and in other cities and in the SovietZone of Occupation the KPD/SED could pursue a large-scale purgeof ‘reactionary’ commemorations that could not have beenaccomplished in the 1920s.

The idea underlying the renaming of streets launched in June1945 was simple: ‘New time e New names!’.26 The projectedreform included two complementary elements. One was replacing‘reactionary’ street names with ‘progressive’ ones. The other wasridding the city from duplicate names. The projected purge of streetnames which were not ‘in keeping with the time’ conformed to thepolicy of the allied administration. Following the decision of theAllied Command in Berlin in October 1945 to close thewarmuseumZeughaus Unter den Linden, since it was a ‘symbol of Germanmilitarism’,27 two prominent members of the KPD in the citygovernment, Karl Maron and Arthur Pieck, emphasized the need toerase all references to the ‘militaristic past’ as well as ‘monumentsof princes and generals’.28 However, the radical approach towardrenaming streets had been publicly articulated before the Allied

n 19 August 1945: Protocol, meeting of the Magistrat on 19 August 1945, StadtarchivZone of Occupation) official renamings were announced in July and October 1945,October 1945.0, No. 759, Landesarchiv Zeitgeschichte (LAZ) 13886.ske, Die Sitzungsprotokolle des Magistrats der Stadt Berlin (note 15), 150.pf um Freiheit und Selbstverwaltung (note 19), 92.pf um Freiheit und Selbstverwaltung (note 19), 92.

M. Azaryahu / Journal of Historical Geography 37 (2011) 483e492 487

Command gave specific orders to purge ‘symbols of German mili-tarism’ from the city. In September 1945 an article in the BerlinerZeitung defined which streets had to be renamed:

29 Ber30 15031 Pro32 Deu33 Am34 Pro35 Otto

Streets, bridges and squares [that] memorialize persons andevents that cannot be harmonized with the anti-fascist-democratic and peace-loving ideals of the new Germanstate.29

According to the anonymous writer of this article, a tenth ofalmost 9000 street names in Berlin were not congruent with theideals of the new Germany. Among such names were those rep-resenting Prussian militarism and German imperialism e names ofPrussian generals and field-marshals, kings, princes and emperors.For the writer of this article, the fact that a street in Berlin was stillnamed after General Ludendorff, a military hero ofWorldWar I andlater an associate of Hitler, was especially irksome. The authormade a specific suggestion: to name streets after writers and artistswho were anathema to the Nazis. This was a rare reference to thenewnames that should represent the ‘democratic’ ideals of the newGermany. Yet at this stage the issue of the new names seemed to beless a concern, the priority being a comprehensive purge of ‘reac-tionary’ commemorations. First on the list of names to be deletedwere names that ‘gained extra bad reputation due to theirconnection with Nazism’.30 Further it was considered necessary todelete all those ‘inopportune names that remind(ed) of militarismand imperialism’.

Further, the comprehensive reformwasalso intended to solve theproblem of duplicate names in Berlin. Though the need to solve theproblemwas acknowledged, no actual measures were taken by theMagistrat in the last years of the Weimar Republic. Under Nazi rulethe issuedisappeared fromthemunicipal agenda. Itwas raised againafter May 1945, the aim being that ‘In Berlin in the future it will nomore happen that two different streets will have the same name’.

The policy underlying the renaming streets in Berlin was artic-ulated in newspaper articles that represented either the views ofpundits or, implicitly, the opinions of unnamed officials engaged inthe venture. Interestingly, Karl Maron, the man in charge ofrenaming Berlin’s street names, articulated the principles guidingthe renaming of streets in Berlin as late as September 1946, onlythree weeks before the elections that brought down the SEDMagistrat. While discussing the renamings proposed by theboroughs, Karl Maron for the first time formulated the criteriaunderlying the renaming of Berlin’s streets: ‘The principle is: first,the fascist names should disappear, second, militaristic and impe-rialistic names, and third, one should get rid of names that appearseveral times’.31 The hierarchy implied that the political aspect ofrenaming was the priority, yet abolishing duplicate street nameswas not a mere by-product but an objective in its own right.Interestingly, even at this late stage, when lists of old and newstreet names were discussed by city government, Maron did notmention any criteria for selecting new names.

The renaming process

The renaming process involved three different procedures. Someboroughs initiated the renaming of streets independent of the city

liner Straßennamen e neu benannt, Berliner Zeitung, 27 September 1945.0 neue Straßennamen in Berlin, Tägliche Rundschau, 7 March 1946.tocol, city government, session on 28 September 1946, in: J. Wetzel (Ed.), Die Sittsche Volkszeitung, 19 September 1945.tsblatt des Bezirksamt Berlin-Reinickendorf, 15 April 1946.tocol, conference of the borough mayors on 20 June 1945, LAZ 3829; Berlin: KamWinzer to Mayor Arthur Werner and deputy mayor Karl Maron, 13 February 1

government. Based on the rule proclaimed by Karl Maron at themeeting of the borough mayors on 20 June 1945, the Magistratinitiated a few commemorations. Both on district and city levels,these activities were meant to create new urban toponymic factswith immediate effect. Concurrently, following the instructions ofthe Magistrat, the boroughs were engaged in compiling proposalsfor renaming streets that would later be examined by theMagistrat.

Notwithstanding Maron’s directive that renaming streetsshould be coordinated and regulated by the Magistrat, boroughadministrations were actively engaged in renaming streets andinstitutions. In the meeting of the district mayors on 20 June 1945,the borough mayor of Zehlendorf reported on the changes that hadtaken place in the district, including the renaming of 29 streetnames in the SS colony built in the district. In July 1945 the mainarena in Neukölln, a working-class district in the American sector,was named after Werner Seelenbinder, a famed boxer anda communist who died in a Nazi prison. In August 1945 theHohenzollernplatz was renamed Karl-Marx-Platz.

In September 1945 the Deutsche Volkszeitung praised theborough of Reinickendorf for pursuing a consequent change ofstreet names: ‘The north of Berlin acted in an exemplary way’.32 Asreported, signs in the district offices announced that two streetswere renamed and new street signs were already in place. Thereport did not mention the new names, an indication that the mainissue was obliterating ‘reactionary’ names. In Köpenick the parknear the railway station was named Platz des 23 April tocommemorate the liberation of the borough by the Soviet army andwas conferred in a ceremony on Memorial Day for the victims offascism.

Renaming streets also enabled the communists in charge ofborough administrations to propagate the message of unitybetween the two working-class parties. This was expedient in themonths preceding the creation of the SED in April 1946. Supportiveof the KPD agenda, the message of unity entailed emphasizing thecommon roots of the two working-class parties and the commonlegacy of anti-fascist struggle. In April 1946 Bergstraße, Neukölln’smain thoroughfare was renamed Karl-Marx-Straße. This wasa resounding political statement about the working-class characterand politics of the borough. In April 1946 the official organ of thecommunist-led borough announced new names of 15 streets inReinickendorf.33 Apparently the changes had already been made,but the timing of the public announcement coincided with thecreation of the SED.

The message of unity between the two working-class partiesalso prompted the communist-led Magistrat to rename two streetsafter August Bebel and Franz Mehring in February 1946, when thecommunist campaign to merge the SPD with the KPD reignedsupreme on the communist agenda. This was the first time that citygovernment made use of its prerogative to name ‘[S]pecial mainstreets and squares after significant figures of the present.’34 Theinitiative was Otto Winzer’s (KPD), the head of the educationdepartment. His proposal was to rename streets after August Bebeland Franz Mehring on the occasion of the approaching anniversa-ries of their birthdays.35 Bebel had been the leader of the pre-FirstWorld War SPD. Mehring was the historian of the workers’ move-ment and supported the communists after 1920. A few days later

zungsprotokolle des Magistrats der Stadt Berlin 1945e1946, Vol. II, Berlin, 1999, 117.

pf um Freiheit und Selbstverwaltung (note 19), 92.946, LAB C Rep. 109.

M. Azaryahu / Journal of Historical Geography 37 (2011) 483e492488

the daily Tagesspiegel reported that Belle-Alliance-Platz and Belle-Alliance-Straße in Kreuzberg were renamed after Mehring andFranz-Joseph-Platz in Berlin-Mitte after August Bebel to honor theirstruggle for ‘peace and understanding among the nations, democ-racy and Socialism’.36

In its meeting on 29 April 1946 and on the behest of Karl Maron,the Magistrat decided to name a square and a street in Friedrich-shain on the occasion of the first anniversary of the liberation ofBerlin by the Soviet Army after General Nikolai Bersarin, the firstSoviet military commander of Berlin.37 According to Maron, theborough government had already made a decision in this regard,yet a decision by city government was needed to emphasize thatthe public honoring of the Soviet commander represented the cityas awhole. The last renaming approved by the SEDMagistratwas inresponse to a petition filed in May 1946 by the general director ofthe Deutsche Theater to rename Karlstraße after the director MaxReinhardt on the occasion of a memorial ceremony planned in hishonor.38

The few changes initiated by the Magistrat were outnumberedby uncoordinated renaming activities in various boroughs thatwere not officially approved and formally announced. Accordingly,it was unclear which streets were renamed and what the newnames were. According to a map of central Berlin published inJanuary 1946 there were 291 new street names in the inner cityalone.39 However, users of the map were warned that in fact thevalidity of the new names was dependent on their official approval.In contrast to the map, internal correspondence of the municipaldepartment for transportation confirmed in January 1946 only fourchanges, including renaming Adolf-Hitler-Platz and Horst-Wessel-Platz Reichskanzlerplatz and Liebknechtplatz, respectively.40 Theconfusion persisted. According to a newspaper report, until March1946 some 200 streets had already been renamed.41 In November1946 another newspaper reported that only eight changes wereconsidered official. These included commemorations of Karl Marxin Neukölln, Karl Liebknecht in Berlin-Mitte, and the commemo-rations of Bebel, Mehring, Max Reinhardt and Bersarin initiated bythe Magistrat.

The sense of confusionwas also a result of relocating names andsuccessive renaming of streets. In Köpenick (Soviet sector), theKirdorfstraße was renamed in 1945 Liebknechtstraße and in late1946 renamed again Seelenbinderstraße.42 In Moabit, a working-class neighborhood in Tiergarten (British sector) a central thor-oughfare, Turmstraße, was named after Ernst Thälmann, themartyred leader of the KPD. This renaming was later revoked, andThälmann’s name was ostensibly given to Kaiserin-Auguste-Allee.After May 1945 a street in Reinickendorf was named Kapitän-Chocholoff-Straße to probably commemorate an unknown Soviet

36 Berlin erhält einen Mehring- und einen Bebel-Platz, Der Tagesspiegel, 22 February 137 Protocol, city government, session on 29 April 1946, Wetzel, Die Sitzungsprotokolle deMay 1946; Der Tagesspiegel, 4 May 1946.38 Protocol, city government, session on 29 May 1946, Wetzel, Die Sitzungsprotokolle d39 Schwarz’sche Stadtplan Berlin, 1946.40 Department of transportation to Karl Maron, 17 January 1946, LAB B Rep. 011, No. 141 1500 neue Straßennamen in Berlin, Tägliche Rundschau, 7 March 1946.42 Magistrat to department of transportation and supply-services, 12 August 1947, LAB43 Amtsblatt des Bezirksamt Berlin-Reinickendorf, 1 April 1946.44 BVG to Department of Transportation, 3 January 1946, LAB B Rep. 011, No. 16.45 BVG to Department of Transportation, 25 April 1946, LAB B Rep. 011, No. 16.46 Protocol, city government, session on 3 August 1946, Wetzel, Die Sitzungsprotokolle47 Groß-Reinemachen im Straßenregister, Berliner Zeitung, 11 December 1945.48 Groß-Reinemachen im Straßenregister, Berliner Zeitung, 11 December 1945.49 1500 neue Straßennamen in Berlin, Tägliche Rundschau, 7 March 1946.50 Department of Transportation to BVG, 7 February 1946, LAB B Rep. 011, No 16.51 Department of Transportation to BVG, 21 March 1946, LAB B Rep. 011, No. 16.

officer. In April 1946 the street regained its former name: Auguste-Viktoria-Allee.43 No explanation was given as to why the name ofthe last German Emperor’s wife was reinstated.

The lack of a clear and definitive list of changes of street nameswas a nuisance for ordinary residents, municipal agencies,publishers of maps and the Berlin transportation company (BerlinerVerkehrsbetriebe, BVG): without a fixed set of street names nomaps of the vicinity of subway stations could be drawn and madeaccessible to the public.44 In April 1946 the BVG wrote to theMagistrat: ‘We assume that the Magistrat intends to avoid unnec-essary renamings, since there is already uneasiness in the populacebecause of the renaming of streets’.45

In early August 1946 the Magistrat decided to halt any furtherchanges of street names to avoid confusion while preparing the listof addresses of voters in the upcoming elections due in October.46

However, it was agreed that changes that had been made before1 August, including those not approved by the Magistrat, would beleft as they were for the time being.

Draft bill no. 428

The state of odonymic confusion in the German capital wassupposed to be concluded with a comprehensive list of former andnewnamesof streets. FollowingMaron’s instructions at theboroughmayors’meeting on 20 June 1946, borough committees were set upwith the task to process proposals and to prepare lists of renamedstreets. Members of these committees represented educationdepartments, political parties and the trade unions.47 Allegedlythese committees also considered the wishes of the public at large.Apparently also private citizens made specific proposals. Thenumber of the streets to be renamed seemed to grow steadily. InDecember 1945 therewere already 677 items on the list of proposednew street names.48 According to a later estimation some 1500streets out of Berlin’s 8856 streets were to be renamed.49

As determined in June 1945, it was the boroughs’ task to compilelists of streets to be renamed and to submit them to a special officeset up for this purpose in the Magistrat. Notwithstanding expec-tations for quick progress, the renaming project did not produceconcrete results. In February 1946 the Magistrat claimed that thelists would be completed in 3e4 weeks, and thenwould be handedover to the Allied Military Administration for approval.50 In May1946 Maron’s office explained that the final list could not yet beapproved since some outer boroughs had not yet handed in theirproposals.51 At this stage it was estimated it would take at leastthree more months to accomplish the task.

Titled draft bill 428, the long-awaited list of changes proposedby the boroughs included old names, new names and short

946.s Magistrats der Stadt Berlin (note 31), 419e420; Der Morgen, 1 May 1946; Telegraf, 1

es Magistrats der Stadt Berlin (note 31), 501.

6.

B Rep. 011, No. 16.

des Magistrats der Stadt Berlin (note 31), 419e420 LAB; A Rep. 100e105, No. 778.

Table 1Results of the October 1946 elections in Berlin

SPD CDU SED LDP

Greater Berlin 48.7% 22.2% 19.8% 9.3%Soviet sector 43.6% 18.7% 29.9% 7.8%West sectors 51.8% 23.7% 14.8% 9.7%Seats in the municipal assembly 63 29 26 12

M. Azaryahu / Journal of Historical Geography 37 (2011) 483e492 489

information about the new names.52 The list was discussed ina meeting of city government on 28 September 1946.53 Maronpresented the list, according to which 1795 out of Berlin’s almost9000 streets should be renamed, in addition to 89 squares, 9 parks,17 bridges, and one neighborhood. According to the official cate-gorization, 576 of the new names were geographical names, 346names of scientists and artists, 242 were ‘political names’, 41 wererestored, pre-Nazi names, 95 were names ‘of general nature’ and485 were defined as ‘neutral’ names.

The number of proposed changes varied between boroughs.There was no correlation between the social character of a boroughand the number of proposed renamings. Wedding, an inner-cityworking-class district in the British sector, proposed 22, whileNeukölln, a working-class district in the American sector, proposed203 changes. The middle-class boroughs of Steglitz, Tempelhof andZehlendorf in the American sector proposed 220, 194 and 145changes, respectively, while the working-class borough of Frie-drichshain in the Soviet sector proposed only 32 changes.

The main difference seems to be between the six inner-cityboroughs of ‘historical’ Berlin and the outer boroughs with whichthey were amalgamated in 1920 to form Greater Berlin. Thenumber of proposed renamings in the outer boroughs wassubstantially larger than that in the six inner-city boroughs. Indeed,whereas most changes proposed for the inner-city boroughs wereof a political nature, most changes proposed in the outer boroughswere apolitical and represented an attempt at a comprehensivereform of local odonymy that also included deleting duplicatenames.

On the level of commemorative priorities, the boroughs differedin the number of ‘victims of fascism’, namely anti-Nazi martyrs theyproposed to commemorate. Though anti-fascism was a foundationof the new democratic order under construction, the term ‘victimsof fascism’ (Opfer des Faschismus, OdF) was closely associated withCommunist organizations and propaganda.54 Some boroughs, suchas Wilmersdorf, Zehlendorf and the working-class boroughs Frie-drichshain (which the Nazis renamed Horst-Wessel-Stadt after thesupreme Nazi martyr) and Neukölln did not propose any suchcommemorations. The number of proposed commemorations of‘victims of antifascism’ was exceptionally high in Wedding, alsoknown as ‘redWedding’, where 17 of the 22 proposed street namescommemorated local ‘victims of fascism’. In Reinickendorf 18 of the130 proposed names commemorated ‘victims of fascism’. Therecords do not provide any information about how these lists hadbeen compiled. It is noteworthy that the mayors of Wedding andReinickendorf were communists, while those of Friedrichshain andNeukölln were Social Democrats who joined the SED.

While discussing the list at their meeting on 28 September 1946,members of the city government highlighted the faults in theproposed list, yet no specific information was given as to whatthese faults were. It appeared that one important issue was theexpressed need to create thematic uniformity in certain neigh-borhoods, where street names shared a common commemorativetheme. Yet the idea of forming thematic uniformity on the level ofneighborhoods had not been promulgated by Karl Maron in June1945. It was also not mentioned when he presented the list ofproposals to members of the city government. His main issue, as healso made clear at the beginning of the meeting, was to purge the

52 Draft Bill (Vorlage) 428, LAB C Rep. 109, No. 454.53 Protocol, city government, session on 28 September 1946, Wetzel, Die Sitzungsproto54 The term ‘victims of fascism’ was institutionalized as the name of the communist-coFaschismus) that also organized the memorial days for the victims of fascism. On the cateof the period see: J. Herf, Divided Memory: The Nazi Past in the Two Germanies, Cambrid55 Landkartenhandlung und geographischer Verlag to BVG, 17 March 1947, LAB B Rep.56 Wetzel, Die Sitzungsprotokolle des Magistrats der Stadt Berlin (note 18), 33.

register from reactionary names and to solve the problem ofduplicate names.

Following the understanding that the list needed further pro-cessing, it was decided to set up a committee to ‘prepare therenaming of streets’. Headed by Otto Winzer (SED), the head of theeducation department, four members of this projected commissionbelonged to the SED; the fifth represented the liberal party. InOctober 1946 Maron’s office informed the owner of a cartographicpublishing house that though the list of changes was already ready,the enactment of the changes would be left to the new citygovernment formed after the elections to the municipal assemblydue on 20 October 1946.55

Phase II: November 1946eJune 1948

The elections held on 20 October 1946 in Berlin for the municipalassembly and the borough assemblies were the first free electionssince January 1933 (see Table 1). The working-class parties won anoverwhelmingmajority, but in light of the tension between the SPDand the SED, the main issue was the distribution of votes betweenthe two parties. After a year and half of a non-elected citygovernment dominated by the KPD/SED, the popular vote meanta rejection of the SED in favor of the SPD.With almost half the votesthe SPD was by far the strongest faction in the municipal assembly.The SED trailed behind the Christian-Democratic party as the thirdstrongest party in the municipal assembly. The support for the SEDwas relatively higher in the Soviet sector of the city, but even therethe primacy of the SPD was a clear-cut issue.

The SPD was also by far the strongest faction in the districtassemblies. With the exception of Zehelndorf, where the incum-bent CDU mayor retained his position, all newly elected boroughmayors were Social Democrats. In all the eight boroughs of theSoviet sector the SED was the second strongest after the SPD.Wedding was the only district in the Western sectors where theSED gained second place, yet in this working-class district the SPDwon absolute majority in the borough council.

Notwithstanding the electoral failure of the SED, the commu-nists enjoyed the support of the Soviet military command in Berlin,which was especially significant in the Soviet sector of the city. Thenew City Government took office on 6 December 1946.56 Themunicipal assembly elected a new city government with OttoOstrowski (SPD), the mayor of Wilmersdorf, as Mayor. His first,second and third deputies represented the CDU, SED and the SPD,respectively. No member of the former city government remainedin office.

Though democratically elected, the ability of the new citygovernment to govern was substantially hampered by SEDobstructionism supported by the Soviet administration. Reflected

kolle des Magistrats der Stadt Berlin (note 31), 864e865.ntrolled Main Committee for the Victims of Fascism (Hauptschuß für die Opfer desgories ‘victims of fascism’ and ‘fighters against fascism’ in the Communist discoursege, MA, 1997, 75e81.011, No. 16.

M. Azaryahu / Journal of Historical Geography 37 (2011) 483e492490

in the deepening rift between the communists and the other threeparties, municipal politics was strongly influenced by the growingconflict between the Soviets and the threewestern allies. Ostrowskisecretly negotiated with the SED, yet the municipal assemblyrejected his overtures toward the communists. In February 1947 hewas forced to resign, and his deputy, Luise Schroeder, becamea caretaker Mayor. In June 1947 the municipal assembly electedErnst Reuter (SPD) as Mayor. The Soviets vetoed his appointment,which created a constitutional crisis. Luise Schroeder remained inoffice as acting Mayor until new elections were held in November1948. In June 1948 the Soviets declared an end to the joint alliedadministration and started the blockade of the western sectors ofBerlin. On the administrative-political level, the division of Berlinwas sealed in November 1948. While in the Soviet sector a new citygovernment under the control of the SED was formed, the electedcity government with Ernst Reuter as Mayor moved to the Amer-ican sector of the city.

The deepening political crisis in Berlin overshadowed thepotentially divisive issue of street names. However, decisions had tobe made and the issue needed to be resolved in one way or another.The commission nominated by the SED-led city government in itsmeeting on 28 September 1946 to examine the renaming of streetsnever convened. Following the October 1946 elections, the questionof street names was to be resolved by the democratically electedcity council. As the conservative paper Neue Zeit noted in earlyNovember 1946, the ‘last word’ spoken on the issue of renamingstreets would ‘please all Berliners, since it would come from electedrepresentatives and not in authoritarian manner from above’.57

The elections prompted a reevaluation of the question of streetrenaming on both the district and city level. However, at this stagethe Magistrat rather than the boroughs was in charge of decision-making. Shortly after the elections a new commission was set upto examine the proposals submitted by the boroughs to the formercity government. Members of this commission were civil servants:two from the education department, one from the building andhousing department and an official from the office of the Mayor.

At first the commission’s work seemed to proceed quickly. InJanuary 1947 the proposals of ten boroughs were already scruti-nized. However, shortly afterward the Magistrat entertained theidea to halt the renaming of streets altogether, with the exceptionof Nazi names that obviously had to be formally deleted.58 On theadministrative level, the confusion as to the issue of jurisdictionwas resolved in May 1947, when city government decided to putthe department for building and housing in charge of namingstreets in Berlin, thereby indicating that street naming belonged tothe sphere of urban infrastructure. Decisions were final after beingsigned by the Mayor.

The official list: July 1947

The long overdue official list was signed by acting Mayor Schroederon 31 July 1947, and was published in the official gazette on 1October 1947.59 It included 151 changes. Though not limited todeleting Nazi street names only, the number of actual renamings

57 Magistrat und Straßennamen, Neue Zeit, 7 November 1946.58 Landkartenhandlung und geographischer Verlag to BVG, 17 March 1947, LAB B Rep.59 Verordnungsblatt für Groß-Berlin, 3 (21), 1 October 1947.60 Nachtexpress, 4 July 1947.61 Protocol, borough council Köpenick, session on 20 October 1947, LAB C Rep. 146, No62 Department of building and housing to borough council Berlin-Mitte, 28 January 1963 Verordnungsblatt für Groß-Berlin, 3 (31), 12 July 1948.64 Verzeichnis der Strassen und Plätze, die nach Sozialisten, Gewerschaftlern, Arbeiterführ65 Der Morgen, 2 October 1948.66 Protocol, borough council Köpenick, session on 20 October 1947, LAB C Rep. 146, No

was less than one tenth of what had been proposed by the SED-controlled boroughs in 1946. The reason given for reducing thenumber of renamings was the high cost entailed: according toestimation, the projected cost of replacing the street signs alonewould have amounted to 2.5 million Reichsmark.60

Largely based on the proposals included in the draft bill 428,underlying the compilation of the official list were general princi-ples defined in terms of priorities and constraints. Obviously therewas the need to limit the number of changes. In order not toaggravate the problem of duplicate street names in Berlin, givingidentical or similar sounding names to streets in different boroughswas to be avoided.61 Another principle was that ‘street namesrelated to the development of Berlin from a fishermen’s village toa world city should not be changed’.62 The issue of thematicuniformity in certain neighborhoods raised in September 1946 wasno more on the municipal agenda.

In addition to Nazi names, purged from the official register werealso some ‘militaristic’ and dynastic street names. Altogether, 34names given by the Republican Magistrat in the 1920s and laterdeleted by the Nazis were restored. Ebert was recommemorated inMitte and Stresemann in Kreuzberg. Brauner Weg was renamedSingerstraße, and not, as Mayor Werner suggested in May 1945,Grüner Weg, the original name already changed by the RepublicanMagistrat in 1926. Notably, Königpslatz did not regain its formername: Platz der Republic. The failure to restore the square’s formerrepublican name was corrected a year later.63

According to a list prepared by the Magistrat in January 1948,among the 151 names on the official list were 35 commemorationsof ‘socialists, trade-unionists, leaders of the workers’ movementand anti-fascists’.64 These included the founding heroes of GermanSocial Democracy and Communism and prominent leaders of thesocialist movement killed by the Nazis, the most prominent beingthe Social Democrat Rudolf Breitscheid, after whom a square wasnamed in Charlottenburg. In general, commemorations of local‘victims of fascism’ proposed by the boroughs were not approvedby theMagistrat. The proposal to rename Auguste-Viktoria-Allee inTiergarten after Ernst Thälmann, the martyred hero of the KPD/SED, was not included in the official list. In light of Thälmann’sprominence in the post-1945 communist pantheon, the decisionnot to name a street after him in an SPD-dominated Berlin waspolitically significant.

Taking an issue with the Magistrat: Köpenick

Some of the changes made official overrode various changesalready implemented by boroughs. According to a newspaperreport in October 1948, 174 unauthorized renamings in theboroughs had to be rescinded, which implied inconvenience forcitizen, postal services and businesses.65

In Reinickendorf names of local ‘victims of fascism’ had to bedeleted from the street signs. Köpenick’s borough council tookissue with the rejection of eleven street names, including names of‘anti-fascists’.66 In its statement, the borough council pointed outthat since these names had already been in use for two years, their

011, No. 16.

. 47e52.48, LAB C Rep. 131-01.

ern und Antifaschisten benannt wurden, 14 January 1948, LAB B Rep. 109, No. 454.

. 47e52.

M. Azaryahu / Journal of Historical Geography 37 (2011) 483e492 491

imminent removal would irk the local population and would makea lasting bad impression. In regard to commemorating anti-fascists,it asserted that honoring the memory of well-known anti-fascistsby naming streets after them was the borough council’s utmostduty. Beyond issuing a defiant statement, the borough also nego-tiated with theMagistrat on the possibility to approve at least someof the rejected changes. The expectation was that the Magistratwould reconsider and approve four of the rejected proposals.67 Thisdid not happen. Though the Magistrat did not approve the desig-nation Platz des 23 Juli, it acquiesced to its use as an unofficialname.

Aftermath: July 1947eJune 1948

Contrary to the projection of the Neue Zeit, the official list ofchanges was not the ‘last word’ regarding renaming of streets.68

Renaming streets further figured on the municipal agenda:borough councils, most notably in the Soviet sector, where thepower of the SED exceeded its share of elected representatives,petitioned the Magistrat to commemoratively rename streets.However, since approval by the Magistrat was mandatory, resolu-tions passed by borough councils were followed by negotiationsbetween some politically proactive boroughs in the Soviet sectorand a reluctant department for building and housing, the authorityin charge of naming streets. For the SED, proposals to renamestreets served as a tool to make political statements and demon-strate commitment to progressive ideals and to the legacy ofmartyred comrades. As a member of Köpenick’s borough office putit, ‘The names of anti-fascists who were murdered in 1933 in sucha bestial manner should be preserved in the street names toposterity’.69 TheMagistrat, on the other hand, was reluctant to carryout changes that would either delete historical names or violate theprinciple that ‘street names in Berlin should appear only once’.70

In August 1947 the borough council Berlin-Mitte petitioned theMagistrat to name a street after Lidice, the Czech village destroyedby the SS, on the occasion of the meeting of the ‘victims of fascism’

due to take place in September.71 The Magistrat did not acquiesce,arguing that the issue of street nameswas closed for the time being,while new maps were under preparation.72 As an alternative, theMagistrat suggested to commemorate the victims of Lidice bya name of an institution, such as a children’s home.73

In January 1948 at the behest of the SED faction the boroughcouncil of Mitte petitioned the Magistrat to rename theKönigsstraße, where City Hall was located, and Lustgarten, aftertwo heroes of the 1848 revolution.74 The occasion was theapproaching first centenary of the revolution. The department incharge of street names in theMagistrat rejected the petition on theground that these were historical names and should not beerased.75 Both the SPD and the SED recognized the 1848 bourgeoisrevolution as a progressive historical event. At one level, the peti-tion was a symbolic message of adhering to the legacy of the 1848,shared by both SPD and SED. At another level, the petition wasa vehicle of SED propaganda. Notably, in this period of rising

67 Protocol, borough council Köpenick, session on 24 November 1947, LAB C Rep. 146,68 Magistrat und Straßennamen, Neue Zeit, 7 November 1946.69 Protocol, borough council Köpenick, session on 1 March 1948, LAB C Rep. 146-02-0270 Protocol, borough council Köpenick, session on 1 March 1948, LAB C Rep. 146-02-0271 Protocol, borough council Berlin-Mitte, session on 12 August 1947, LAB C Rep. 131-072 Schley to Bab, borough mayor of Berlin-Mitte, 23 August 1947, LAB C Rep. 131-01.73 Magistrat’s decision No. 337, 1 September 1947, LAB C Rep. 131-01.74 Protocol, borough council Berlin-Mitte, session on 6 January 1948, LAB C Rep. 131-075 Municpal department for building and housing to borough council Berlin-Mitte, 2876 P. Stangl, Revolutionaries’ cemeteries in Berlin: memory, history, place and space, U77 See the inquiry of a resident of Tegel: Amtsblatt des Bezirksamts Berlin-Rheinickendo

political tensions between the ruling SPD and the SED, the twoparties were also contesting the design of the Revolutionaries’Cemeteries in the Soviet-controlled part of Berlin.76

Altogether theMagistrat approved the renaming of three streetsin 1948. In June, Königsplatz in Tiergarten, the large public space infront of the empty and badly damaged Reichstag building, wasrenamed Platz der Republic. A restoration of the name conferred onthis public square in 1926 by the first Republic, this was the lastrenaming authorized by the Magistrat of Greater Berlin’s. InNovember 1948 the city was split into two.

Conclusion

When investedwith commemorative function, street names belongnot only to the language of urban space but also to public memoryand, importantly, to the symbolic infrastructure of the ruling socio-political order. A ‘ritual of revolution’, the commemorativerenaming of streets in the context of regime change introduces theideological reorientation of society into the cityscape and intoeveryday urban contexts. Notably, it translates discontinuity inpolitical history into the revised language of urban space.

The process of renaming history in post-1945 Berlin beganunder a Communist Magistrat and concluded with the changesimplemented by a Social Democrat Magistrat two years later. Thediscrepancy between the ambitious project launched by theCommunist-led borough governments and Magistrat in June 1945and the actual number of renamings approved by the SocialDemocratic Magistrat in July 1947 reflected the divergentapproaches espoused by the Communists and Social Democrats torenaming history in Berlin.

At one level, renaming history in post-1945 Berlin shows theeffect political power relations and ideological pressures have oncommemorative priorities. Yet it also draws attention to practicalpressures and priorities that influence large-scale renamingprocedures. Beyond the ideological reorientation of street names,renaming history also involves replacing street signs and the costsit entails. And notwithstanding its effect on the commemorativetraditions inscribed on street signs, the list of renamings approvedby the Social Democratic Magistrat in July 1947 also representeda priority of an administrative nature: to create odonymic stabilityin the city.

The Communist-led administration in Berlin failed to bring theambitious project of a comprehensive odonymic reconstruction ofBerlin to completion. This failure created a situation of prolongedodonymic instability and confusion, aggravated by renamingsexecuted by borough administrations without the necessaryapproval of the Magistrat. The lack of odonymic certainty wasa source of frustration and irritation for map-makers and themunicipal transportation company, postal services and businesses,and last but not least, ordinary citizens uncertain about their actualaddresses.77 Beyond rejecting the Communist approach to renam-ing history, the list approved by the Social Democratic Magistrat in

No. 47e52.

.

.1.

1.January 1948, LAB C Rep. 131-01.rban History 34, 3 (2007) 407e426.rf, 1 February 1948.

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1947 evinced the urgent need to finally bring closure to more thantwo years of odonymic uncertainty and confusion in Berlin.

The case of post-1945 Berlin also demonstrates that renaminghistory can be a protracted procedure that may involve consecutivephases. The list of renamings approved in 1947 establisheda temporary odonymic stability only since it did not represent theend of renaming history. The commemorative politics of streetrenaming was further on the agenda of the SED. Following thepartition of Berlin in November 1948 and the founding of theCommunist German Democratic Republic in the Soviet Zone ofOccupation in October 1949, the SED could carry out itscommemorative agenda in East Berlin. In 1949e1950 centralstreets and squares in East Berlin were renamed after heroes andleaders of the MarxisteLeninist regime. The purge of ‘reactionary’Prussian history from the official register of street names, whichwas high on the communist agenda in 1945e1946, was evidently

78 M. Azaryahu, The purge of Bismarck and Saladin. The renaming of streets in Haifa351e367.79 Tägliche Rundschau, 13 April 1951.

not a priority at this stage of communist consolidation of power.The incongruity between the official ideology of the East Germanregime and the vision of history written on street signs wasresolved in the spring of 1951, when the SED Magistrat initiateda large-scale mopping-up operation in East Berlin in the course ofwhich 159 streets were renamed.78 All the names erased werePrussianeGerman ‘militaristic’ and monarchic commemorations.An East Berlin newspaper announced the forthcoming purge of‘reactionary’ names in the SED-ruled sector of Berlin with theheadline ‘Renamings, at long last’.79

Acknowledgment

The research was supported by a grant from the Haifa Center forGerman and European Studies.

and East Berlin: a comparative study in culture-planning, Poetics Today 13 (1992)